Russia accuses Turkey of being a primary recipient.

ISISISIS brings in about $40 million a month in revenue from oil sales, according to remarks made by Acting Treasury Undersecretary Adam Szubin in London on the same day the U.S. military announced it had killed ISIS' finance minister in an airstrike in Iraq late last month.

According to Adam Szubin, ISIS has earned $500 million from oil sales so far, as well as between $500 million and $1 billion from Iraqi and Syrian bank lootings, while it "extorted many millions more from the populations under its control."

ISIS "presents a challenging financial target," Szubin said in the prepared remarks. "Unlike many other terrorist groups, ISIL derives a relatively small share of its funding from donors abroad. Rather, ISIL generates wealth from economic activity within the territory it controls. This makes it difficult to constrain its funding."

Nevertheless, Szubin said the U.S. was working with Iraq to cut off banks in ISIS-controlled territory from the international financial network, and that it had sanctioned more than 30 ISIS leaders and financiers. The U.S.-led military coalition had also begun, he said, to bomb ISIS' "key energy assets," including oil fields, refineries, and tankers.

Szubin reportedly deviatedfrom his prepared remarks, telling his audience in London that ISIS had been "selling a great deal of oil to the Assad regime," far more than made its way into Turkey or Kurdish-controlled areas there and in Iraq.

Russia has previously accused Turkey of being the primary destination of oil from ISIS, alleging Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, the new energy minister and former CEO of an Istanbul-based conglomerate, were orchestrating the resale of oil coming from ISIS, an allegation Ergoan called a "slander."

Earlier this week at a Senate hearing, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter opened the door to redeploying troops to Iraq, but also warned such an escalation would "Americanize" the conflict and fuel "a call to jihad" in the region.

In an address to the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday, President Barack Obama described ISIS as part of a terrorist threat that's "evolved into a new phase" after the U.S. limited the ability of terrorist groups to perpetrate "complex, multifaceted attacks like 9/11," saying the U.S. and its allies were ramping up their military campaign against ISIS and its infrastructure in the wake of the November 13 ISIS attacks in Paris.

The United States continues to insist the political solution to the war in Syria will require Bashar Assad, a Russian ally, to step down. Critics of the Syrian regime accuse it of avoiding a confrontation with ISIS and even creating space for it in order to weaken the broader rebel movement, part of which the U.S. supports.

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too busy with the banks - Szubin said the U.S. was working with Iraq to cut off banks in ISIS-controlled territory from the international financial network, and that it had sanctioned more than 30 ISIS leaders and financiers.

I read a report about 10 years ago pointing out that international financial sanctions basically don't affect islamic terror groups at all because they all utilize Halawa systems which don't require direct funds transfer, and instead rely on 'trust nodes'. It bypasses international financial systems entirely.

It was also used in the late-1970s-1980s by drug smugglers who realized it was idiotic to be trying to move giant piles of cash from one country to another. The Chinese Triads had a similar system that worked in a few countries via expatriate communities.

But you'd think - or perhaps this is naive - that they'd actually consider the cost-benefit options of all the various ways of trying to hurt terrorists... and choose the most effective ones. Instead they choose the "biggest hammer" which ends up costing the most and hurting the most innocent peripheral organizations... because "big schemes" are a way to increase political power.

why do you think all the bigwigs in Paris are thrilled to do huge, vague "climate deals"? Its one big collective excuse to grab more power for themselves in each of their respective countries, which they can all blame on 'the weather'.

at the risk of sounding conspiratorial, do they want to hurt the terrorists? Or do they need the terrorists in order to expand the police and surveillance state along with other control mechanisms?

I have long believed that any institutional effort to solve a societal problem is far more vested in perpetuating that problem. There are jobs, power, prestige, etc on the line. No one derails their own gravy train.

But... the 'utility' of terrorists is purely in their existence as theoretical, 'far away problems'

when they start killing your people and fucking up your claims of maintaining 'stability', then morons like Trump can come along and kick you and your peers out of power and fuck up the whole thing. Of course everyone wants "perpetual problems" to solve. But they prefer they be toothless ones like Global Warming or Inequality or something. The reason the media has gone into full pants-shitting mode since San Bernardino is because they're terrified that the reality of a terrorist attack on US soil means the end of the party for Democrats. and they're not far wrong.

meanwhile, the urban shooting gallery continues its daily run without a word from Dems, who are supposed to care so deeply about the victims of that violence. I get terrorism being a problem, but the numbers say the death toll this weekend in (pick your large Blue urban area) will be higher than San Bernardino.

Seriously, 'environmental impact' was supposedly one of the reason oil fields and refineries weren't bombed.
Also, fear of civilian casualties (this is why for months truck convoys could operate umolested) and presumably not wanting to say to Iraqi government "Oh hey, we just wrecked billions of dollars of your infrastructure and probably cost you couple billions a year in lost oil revenue."

I also love how they seem to think killing 'ISIS's finance minister' is akin to striking some major blow to the institution.

Would any major company implode if their CFO had a heart attack? No, they'd just promote someone else.

It would be more-significant if they - as noted - actually destroyed their sources of cash (oil refineries), or really punished their biggest-customers. Killing a few footsoldiers isn't how you dismantle the organization.

So neither Rubio nor his "factchecking" lapdogs took at all into account the most important fact: our feelings. I am always glad knowing that laws are being rammed through critical analysis and passed to make me feel safe.

"Unlike many other terrorist groups, ISIL derives a relatively small share of its funding from donors abroad. Rather, ISIL generates wealth from economic activity within the territory it controls. This makes it difficult to constrain its funding."

Is it just me or does this seem like it would be easier to constrain its funding?

Putin: Tell you what buddy, I'll deal with ISIS - you deal with the other rebels involved in the insurrection. I get to help a friend, claim to be defending the free world from crazy terrorists, stabilize a friendly regime in a neighboring country, and give the USA a red ass.